Crowdecote

CROWDECOTE

Crowdecote nestles deep in the valley beside the river Dove, and can be approached by an extremely steep and winding road descending High Needham hill or an alternative descent from the village of Longnor .

The river forms the county boundary between Derbyshire and Staffordshire; however, most of the properties in this tiny hamlet are in Derbyshire.

The original Crowdy Coat Bridge over the Dove was a wooden footbridge. In 1709 this was replaced by a stone packhorse bridge, which was constructed to enable the heavily laden packhorse ponies to cross. The turnpike route from Royal cottage on the Buxton to Leek road lead via Monyash and Horse Lane to Ashford and Bakewell . It was a popular route and a toll cottage with a gate stood just on the Derbyshire side of the Dove. The gate has now disappeared as has the toll when the toll gates were ‘thrown open’ on 1st November 1873, but Toll Bar Cottage still stands.

It is also thought that the name Crowdecote is a corruption of Cruda’s Cot (Cruda was a Saxon landowner) and a cot is a form of shelter.

Packhorse Inn at Crowdecote is renowned for its menu of home-made tasty meals.

Near to Crowdecote are the impressive conical-shaped Chrome Hill and Parkhouse Hill which are reef knolls, being examples of a kind of coral reef formed by billions of polyps in the carboniferous sea. Unlike the softer limestone, they retained their original structure and are richer in marine fossils than limestone, containing trilobites and corals.

Due north of Crowdecote is the more conventional shaped hill of High Wheeldon which reaches a height of 1348 feet. It was given to the nation as a memorial to the men of Derbyshire and Staffordshire who fell in the Second World War and then made over to the National Trust.